Mandarins Age-Out Appears on Boston Public

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mandarins1
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Mandarins Age-Out Appears on Boston Public

Post by mandarins1 » Sun Jan 11, 2004 8:30 pm

Steve Sperber, a 2003 Mandarins age-out, recently appeared with the Riverside Community College (RCC) drum line in an episode of "Boston Public". The story involved the show's high school marching band drum line.

Steve marched as a member of the Mandarins tenor line between 2000 - 2003, serving as section leader his last three years. He is presently studying psychology at RCC.

When asked about the experience, Steve stated, "while it was fun, television filming didn't seem to be run very efficiently, there seemed to be a lot of time spent standing around." However, "working in a fully air conditioned environment and having all our meals catered was nice."

Steve also let on something most viewers might not have noticed - the drumming was dubbed in. In order to keep volumes at an acceptable level while filming, "the drums were muffled underneath, and while we didn't 'air drum', we didn't do full out drumming." The musical sequence was actually performed by the drum line seen on television, but recorded a week before filming. After the scene was filmed, the actual "beats" were added to the soundtrack.

As a bonus, Steve also appeared on a recent epsiode of the series "Charmed" as a "hippie bongo player". Steve was chosen for this role after network casting directors saw photos of the individual drum line members.

When asked if acting is in his future, Steve replied, "Nope, I plan on becoming a psychologist and teaching drums."

The current members of the Mandarins are preparing for their first camp of the season, to be held January 16 -18 at Lodi High School in Lodi CA. Further membership information can be found at:
http://www.mandarins.org/dci/auditions.html.

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